The origin of the OKV

The origins of the of the Ostdeutsches Kuratorium von Verbänden (East German Board of Associations, OKV) go back to the moment when the Berlin Wall came down. As soon as it became obvious that political change was inevitable, several groups of then still GDR cadres united in organizations to protect their immediate interests. Such organizations were usually formed around specific occupations, and were typically established by small groups of colleagues whose immediate concern at that time was their own future. At the same time, SED-successor party PDS was also building a network of interest groups in East Germany. The PDS, which at that time presented itself as an “east German interest party”, was instrumental in the establishment of the OKV, which originally seems to have been intended as a “transmission belt” of organizations around the PDS. In his book on the development of the PDS/Die Linke since 1989, David Patton suggests that “PDS members, former elites and local PDS politicians commonly participated in three broad types of interest groups in the new federal states: those with institutional origins in the former GDR; those that formed to assist and inform the Federal Republic's newest citizens (e.g., tenant rights, tax provisions, unemployment, political education); and associations that more narrowly represented former GDR elites”.